Will Chewing Gum Make You Lose Weight Or Gain Weight?

When it comes to chewing gum and weight loss, many believe that gum is fattening or can cause you to not achieve your fitness goals. However, this is not the case as chewing gum does not have nearly the amount of calories to cause you to gain weight. But being that there is a ton of misconception floating around the internet and media about this topic, I decided to write an article and tell you exactly why it is not unhealthy to chew gum and how it can help you lose weight if you apply a cool technique that I will show you in a minute.

So before I show you my cool trick on how to lose weight by chewing gum, I wanted to break down a few of the most common ingredients that I have found in chewing gum and show you why they will not make you fat. With that being said, the most common ingredients found in gum are as follows:

Chewing Gum Ingredient #1: Softeners

Softeners are what makes the gum nice and moist. If softeners were not an ingredient, the gum would likely become too hard to chew. A common softener includes glycerin. Glycerin is not bad for you as long as large quantities are not consumed. There has been debate as to whether glycerin is classified as a carbohydrate or not, but for the purpose of this article and chewing gum, there is not a problem with it when it comes to losing weight.

Chewing Gum Ingredient #2: Sweeteners

These are the ingredients found in chewing gum that make it taste sweet. Now here is where you will want to look at the back of the label. I suggest that you pick a gum that has all natural sugars in it. There are some companies that use aspartame and corn syrup as sweeteners. As long as you do not chew a pack of gum a day, these sweeteners will be OK. However, ALWAYS try to stick with sugars as the preferred sweetener as it is all natural and is the healthiest of all the sweeteners mentioned above.

Chewing Gum Ingredient #3: Flavorings

This is the ingredient that gives gum its unique flavor. For example, spearmint, peppermint, fruit, orange, etc. are all common flavors that one can buy at a local convenience store or gas station.

Chewing Gum Ingredient #4: Gum Base

This is the ingredient that makes your gum appear as a stick of gum. Without it, you will likely not have gum that is chewable.

So now that you have the 4 main ingredients to chewing gum, I would now like to tell you my little known trick to losing weight while chewing gum.

The trick is to chew gum after you eat a meal! So for example, after you eat breakfast and lunch, chew a piece of gum as you normally would. What studies have shown as well as my experience with using this method is that you are not as hungry and do not have the cravings that you normally would.

Now this trick may not work for you but I always carry gum with me and chew it after a meal and it has proven to keep my appetite in check. However, the results are not so drastic that you will lose 10 pounds in a month but it can help to prevent any unnecessary snacking that can kill your weight loss progress.

Important Note: As a reminder, always try to purchase gum that has all natural ingredients. If some ingredients are synthetic, it will not make a huge difference but just be conscience of this and look for the all natural ingredients I mentioned above for the best options.